Funding sources, Fundraising

Zurich Community Trust - More Than Money programme

Sarah Covington, National Partnerships & Development Manager at Zurich Community Trust, writes about how Zurich supports small to medium sized charities in the UK.

Over the past four years, we have been developing what we call our ‘More than Money’ programme which, in essence, is everything we do to support our charity partners in addition to our multi-year grant funding.

The Zurich Community Trust (ZCT) currently supports 55 small to medium-sized charities across the UK and our aim is to listen to our partners’ key challenges and then look at how we can offer support in these areas.

Through surveys, regular catch-ups and quarterly Partnership Forum meetings, we gather feedback on the most pressing topics, with the top three challenges currently being retention and recruitment, fundraising and training. In addition, we regularly hear that employee and volunteer wellbeing is an area that charities feel they cannot invest funds in. ZCT has subsequently been putting on webinars focusing on topics which support mental health and personal development, to help manage the ever-demanding stresses in this modern world that we live in.

Our support ranges from apprenticeship funding, sector-specific courses, free access to group memberships and subscriptions, DSC Funds Online platform, online conferences, governance tools and personal development training platforms.

The Trust also has a strong focus on Sustainability, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) and we look to work with our charity partners to develop their organisations in these areas.

As the charitable arm of Zurich UK, which employes over 4,500 people UK-wide, there is a wealth of expertise across the business which ZCT can also tap into, to recruit volunteers who can share their knowledge and skills.

All of this support is with the desire to build capacity and resilience for the future, working in true partnership with charities who have been chosen by Zurich’s employees.

Find out more about Zurich Community Trust here.